The mystery of Hitler

[fix]

you can’t repent if you dead.

Did not say you could. How do you know any person can’t repent in an instant before death? And how do you know he was culpable for his actions?

 

[fix]

Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice.

All must be met to be culpable. We may never judge who is culpable. We may judge if one has objectively committed an act, but not if they are culpable before God.

 

[Neo_Canaan]

Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice.

All must be met to be culpable. We may never judge who is culpable. We may judge if one has objectively committed an act, but not if they are culpable before God.

but that dude had 6,000000 murdered.

 

[fix]

but that dude had 6,000000 murdered.

So? What if such a person had a brain tumor and had his free will diminshed? What if he could not give full consent because of this? There are too many variables for us to know guilt before God. This judgement is the judgement Christ warned us not to do.

 

[Neo_Canaan]

he also ordered a whole town and its people burnt down.

 

[fix]

he also ordered a whole town and its people burnt down.

So we can know for sure which humans are in hell? Which other humans are there?

 

[AndyF]

This morning as we were discussing “Schindler’s List,” my wife asked me how Hitler could be as he was. This made me speechless. I can’t imagine why Hitler could be so evil. This is a mystery to me, at least. I wonder what others think of this? How can there be such a person?

In Mat 12,2?, we are given the example of the seven demons, and what can occur after we clean our “house” of sin. We are to be watchful for their return, as they surely will.

Hitler is an example of zero discernment, the screen door wide open, “Whatever life brings me, that’s what I’ll take”.

Evil rewarded him with a charismatic character, and a mass of people prone to lies. The rest is history. We’ve seen the equivalent in our other institutions, lately Religious, but one thing is for sure, nothing is new. Prevention is continuous discernment. The book of Sirach is full of warnings in this regard.

Andy

 

[Bruised_Reed]

but that dude had 6,000000 murdered.

6,000,000 Jews. The total count is more than twice that, though estimates vary.

 

[buzzcut]

Alice Miller desribes Hitler’s childhood and its psychological effects in her book For Your Own Good.

 

[Karl_Keating]

A few quick notes:

1. Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners was panned in every review that I read of it. Among other things, Goldhagen was guilty of what Edmund Burke refused to do with respect to the colonists in eighteenth-century America: He said he did not know how “to draw up an indictment against a whole people.”
2. The Church does not teach that any particular person–whether Judas or Hitler–is in hell. There is no such thing as an anti-canonization.
3. Our Lord repeatedly said that the way to heaven was narrow, the way to perdition broad. The implication is that there are many in hell. We just don’t know their names.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

And Dr. Greg Popcak (of Heart, Mind and Strength) references Alice Miller’s work in his book Parenting with Grace. I think a chapter has the title “How Not to Raise a Nazi”.*

*not super sure about the title the book isn’t in front of me

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Every person who has ever existed has a soul in need of Gods Love and Mercy.

That includes Hitler, and for you to judge him is infinitely worse, for we should forgive others that the Lord might forgive us.

Peace and God Bless.

Magicsilence:

Well put. As horrible as what Adolf Hitler did was, and as great as the temptation is, we as laity can’t anathematize him to hell. We have to judge his evil actions, but God judges the heart and the soul, and I thank God for that, because I am completely unsuited to judge the heart and the soul.

When the mass murderer Yassir Arafat died, I tried very hard to pray for his soul as I had been taught. I’ll admit that it would have ben far easier to have damned him to hell and personally closed the door on him.

As I was praying, I became accutely aware that I “had company”, that as many as 40,000 members of the Communion of Saints were aiding me in my prayers - Arafat’s victims who had made it to heaven and had been given the grace to forgive this murderous thug as they had been forgiven.

Some will say, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” as one deluded priest tried to tell me. No. Arafat’s victims had been given the grace to forgive the terrible things he had done to them and their families and communities.

I have to wonder how many people we will meet in heaven who were murdered by Hitler, ot Stalin or Mao or Pol Pat, who have been given the grace to forgive their murderers.

If their victims can, as evil as the action of the people, can we ask for the same grace? And, Instead of damning past genocidal mass murderers to hell, can we ask for the Wisdom to spot similar genicidal mass murderers before they slaughter millions of innocent people, and the Courage to do whatever is needed to stop them?

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

 

[Traditional_Ang]

A few quick notes:

1. Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners was panned in every review that I read of it. Among other things, Goldhagen was guilty of what Edmund Burke refused to do with respect to the colonists in eighteenth-century America: He said he did not know how “to draw up an indictment against a whole people.”
2. The Church does not teach that any particular person–whether Judas or Hitler–is in hell. There is such thing as an anti-canonization.
3. Our Lord repeatedly said that the way to heaven was narrow, the way to perdition broad. The implication is that there are many in hell. We just don’t know their names.

Fr. Karl:

I know the reviewers panned Goldhagen’s book. I heard him talk to a couple of people I trust, and I read his book and checked out his account of history. The reviewers want to believe that Hitler was a unique phenomenon that can never happen and the German people somehow were so different from the rest of us that what they did could never be repeated.

I believe the Church teaches otherwise and human experience demonstrates otherwise. And, Since when did you rely on secular GODLESS reviewers to do your thinking for you?

A lot of anti-Catholics try to say that the Holocaust was a result of Catholic Anti-Semitism. Goldhagen destroyed that in the first chapter when he documented the literature German “Liberal” Judeophobes were publishing and reading 1880-1917.

Try reading the book. I just can’t see you agreeing with the critics who panned Hitler’s Willing Executioners.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

 

[Karl_Keating]

Fr. Karl:

Since when did you rely on secular GODLESS reviewers to do your thinking for you?

1. I’m not a priest. It’s Mr. Karl to you.
2. All of the reviews I read were by Catholics.

 

[Caesar]

Hitler was an odd man. I’ve been reading up on some of the stranger aspects of Nazi Germany that most people dont think about. This Nazi Mysticism (the Thule Society), the beliefs surrounding the “Aryan race”, religious beliefs (going beyond the Portestant Reich Church); and the almost divine stature Hitler was trying to give himself- an attempt at the ancient Roman Imperial cult (Emperor-worship). Very strange.

 

[2shelbys]

How can anyone do evil? How can an abortion doctor kill just as many as Hitler or Stalin and sleep at night?

Parents do what they can to form a young conscience. But the community as a whole and the individual have their say in the development process too.

Grow up surrounded by anti-semitism being an acceptable thing, experience a depression and give in to the greedy temptation of exploiting people to give rise to your own success. We see just as much evil as Hitler in today’s world, it just is not as obvious.

A good point Tim. It takes less than two years to murder more babies in the U.S. than either Hitler or Stalin did throughout their entire reign. How is that for putting it in persepctive?

 

[2shelbys]

Hitler wasn’t as blatantly evil as he’s made out to be. It’s not like he sat down at a table with his head generals and said “I’d like to order the execution of all Jews today. Make it gruesome!” and then laughed proudly.

True evil is much more subtle and real than that. To understand Hitler’s world view, familiarize yourself with pre-War Germany and modern White Nationalist revisionist literature. Imagine having no belief in an objective measure of good and evil, look at the gradual racial sanctions imposed in Germany over the course of a decade or so, and then you will begin to see.

Very true and brave of you to say so.

 

[2shelbys]

I am not a psychologist, theologian or historian. However, I have read a great deal about Hitler. Whatever else might have been, he was profoundly wrapped up in himself. He was his own universe. At the same time, and perhaps as a result, he was sociopathic. He was quite a talented person, as Albert Speer makes clear. He was also charismatic and, contrary to what many believe, could be quite personable and charming. I am persuaded he was not insane. He scoffed, for instance, at Himmler’s racist cant, privately. He was incredibly manipulative and could spot a useful person with ease. He was also very lucky.

It might be no more complicated than that; a highly talented man who was totally self-absorbed and was seemingly without conscience. If that is the case, there are likely a good number of Hitlers among us today.

I have been studying the Third Reich for over 30 years and that is one of the most accurate and insightful examinations of Hitler that I have ever read. Bravo.

 

[2shelbys]

A few quick notes:

1. Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners was panned in every review that I read of it. Among other things, Goldhagen was guilty of what Edmund Burke refused to do with respect to the colonists in eighteenth-century America: He said he did not know how “to draw up an indictment against a whole people.”

I have seen a host of very unfavorable reviews and outright rebuttals of Goldhagen’s work. It was very poorly researched and riddled with outright fabrication, especially in it’s treatment of the Church.

 

[2shelbys]

but that dude had 6,000000 murdered.

Actully the currently accepted total number of Jews that died in the camp system is 3,500,000. It is not any less of a crime but I am a stickler for accuracy in history. The traditional (and still often quoted) total of 6,000,000 was based on the Soviet claim that 4,000,000 Jews died in Auschwitz alone. A claim which was proven as absolutely impossible. The Auschwitz Memorial Museum (at the site of the former camp) reduced the official death toll of the camp from 4,000,000 to “about 1,500,000” all the way back in 1990. They even replaced the memorial plaque at the camp to reflect this new information. It is funny how almost no one is aware of this. Maybe it is because no press organization covered this major event.

he also ordered a whole town and its people burnt down

The USAAF and RAF incinerated entire cities because Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris was convinced that if we killed enough innocent civilians the German people would turn against Hitler. Atrocities are sadly common on both sides of every war.